To Befall
by Hanyoukai
Summary: It was simply a matter of duty. Sakura x Kakashi. AU


**To Befall**

_By Hanyoukai_

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_Genre_: Romance   
_Pairing_: Sakura/Kakashi   
_Rating_: R   
_Summary_: It was simply a matter of duty. 

_Disclaimer_: This fanfic has been officially disclaimed. 

_Author's Notes_: Please take note that this fanfic is **AU**, contains plenty of **OOC**, and is also mildly **rated R** (or at least I think it will be in upcoming chapters)! The setting is feudal Japan (around 15th century) and I don't suppose ninjas exist at all in this story. However, I have played around with certain details from the anime, so that they're pretty askew and altered here. 

This first chapter is very Sakura-centric, and I doubt that all the parts make sense. Also, please excuse any historical inaccuracies! 

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_"Je me croyais riche d'une fleur unique, et je ne possède qu'une rose ordinaire."_

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, _Le Petit Prince_

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**_Part I_**

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Pale, apricot-tinted sunlight drifted inside through the half-open window, permeating the sparse study with the sigh of approaching spring. The room was stifling, cold and silent, its polished wooden walls reflecting Sakura's misery with distorted calm. 

She kept her head bowed in feigned humility and deference, hiding the vicious anger in her chest, the futile tears that burdened her meadow-green eyes. Her legs were quickly becoming numb from kneeling on the grainy tatami mats, and she concentrated on the obscure discomfort, losing herself in finding the pain of its shrill acridity. 

From across the study, Lord Haruno sighed once again, as if a great weariness refused to budge from his drooping shoulders, and gazing down, unconsciously tapped his ink-stained brush, listlessly and rather loudly, against the old writing table. 

Biting her lip against a rising annoyance, Sakura shifted her feet slightly and renewed the focus of her glare on the worn hem of her azure silk kimono. 

She told herself that she hated the colour, because it served always as a cruel reminder of the clear, unfettered morning sky, below which her mother passed away. Yet day after day, she found herself blindly reaching for it as she dressed at dawn. It was almost absurd how much she welcomed it, waiting each time she covered her body with it in the dark, for the sores to burst and bleed, festering and incurable. 

It should have rained that day. 

Her father cleared his throat uneasily, and set aside the scroll he had been reading with a deliberateness that was not lost on Sakura. She lifted her chin to stare back at him expectantly, head tilted to the side at a comfortable angle, her finger restlessly tracing the embroidered designs on her kimono. 

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again, breaching the ensuing, heavy silence with a pretentiously cough. 

He began again. "I am fearful for the state of your health, Sakura. The servants say you are barely eating anything, and that you no longer make your weekly visit to the village with clothing for the poorer villagers, but rather preferring to stay in your room." 

He paused, waiting for a response. 

When none came, Lord Haruno tried once more. "Sakura, I-I know how hard it must be for you since your mother's death. I know how much you- how close you and your mother were." 

_How close you and your mother were_. Sakura repeated it bitterly in her mind, until it became an incantation that simmered and bubbled forth in venom. He couldn't even say it. He couldn't voice aloud the fact that she loved her. Because then, it would have been acceptable for her to grieve for her own mother, it would have been justified. 

Her father lived in an endless, steady routine of normality, and nothing was supposed to disturb that. Not even his wife's death. 

"-still young... have your entire life ahead of you, which is why I think this is the best decision right now..." 

An unanticipated panic gripped her as her father's monotonous voice droned on. "What?" she blurted suddenly, feeling as if the room was abruptly spinning sideways. 

Lord Haruno blinked owlishly, "An acquaintance of mine, Hatake-sama, has returned from the war up north. He's... he's been seeking a wife recently, so I naturally proposed to have arranged a marriage contract between you two." 

Incredible, she thought, mentally shaking her head in disbelief. He was so adamant on maintaining this structured, perfect life that he didn't think twice before foisting his daughter on to a stranger. Just because she was sad and lonely and desperate to stay that way. 

Sakura felt ill. She arduously stumbled to her feet, still numb from disuse, then soon found herself kneeling back down again. Her fists, pale and slender, were clenched by her side, nails digging into the skin of her palms. 

She was disoriented and confused, as if an indiscernible needle had pierced its way through her spine and was now lodged deep inside her body. 

"Please, Sakura, just-just think this over," he said, his own wrinkled, green eyes dull and unhappy. "It might not seem like the most advantageous path to follow, but someday perhaps..." he trailed off, wordlessly regretting the haunted, glazed look on his daughter's face. 

"I-I need some fresh air," she gasped, awkwardly rushing to her feet and exiting the room, slipping clumsily on the hardwood floor as she ran heedlessly toward the cemetery. 

An indistinct shoji screen, left neglected and open behind her, mutely slid closed as if by some unseen force. 

Lord Haruno sighed gloomily, propping a cool palm against his heavily creased forehead. 

He dipped his hands in a pool of shadows and wept. 

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The grave was sprinkled with frost, hard and compact as the grey earth beneath her feet. She bent down and carefully arranged the few twigs of a prematurely budding lilac tree in front of the plain stone marking. It would bloom soon; her mother had always loved the white blossoms, clustered and majestic against the salty spray of the sea. 

Surrounded by the buried bodies, cold and sleeping in their misty cocoons spawned by winter, Sakura finally felt at peace. Steeped in silence, it was difficult not to reflect on her future, still unknown and covert before her eyes. 

She prayed, then, to forget. For the kami to wipe away her fears and uncertainties and resentment, as easily as she brushed away the enduring tears from her gaze. 

Standing up, Sakura obliviously wandered down the small hill and past the continuous horizon of trees, until she reached a secluded clearing in the forest just beyond her father's land. 

One more step forward, then a kunai grazed dimly past her shoulder, taking with it a severed lock of her long hair, as its sharp blade embedded deep into the trunk of a tree. 

He had been training, the sweat dampening his dark hair and sliding past the band on his forehead. 

"Sasuke?" she inquired, unable to see beyond the obscurity that blurred his face. 

"Haruno." His red-tinged eyes narrowed, another glinting knife grasped threateningly in his hand. "You shouldn't be here. This is Uchiha land." 

She nodded, realizing her blunder. With the recent number of wars constantly erupting, it was increasingly difficult to associate with anyone who was not from Leaf territory. "I'm sorry," she frowned. "Still, you could be a little nicer, Sasuke. I see age hasn't improved your disposition at all." 

Sasuke stiffened and turned to ignore her. 

The sunlight from above the threadbare canopy of branches was rapidly fading into dusk, condensing the gloomy serenity below it into a sphere of onyx. 

"I'm leaving soon, you know," she said to no one in particular, a veil of bitterness warping her tone. "Maybe for forever." 

A pause of silence, and then, "Is that why you came here?" His voice, cold and indifferent, carried over toward her through the thin air. 

"I-I don't know anymore. Perhaps...perhaps I was searching for something," she replied cryptically, wondering what she had meant by her own, laced words. 

He made no reply, and Sakura turned to leave. She was afraid of the falling darkness. 

"Did you find it?" 

"I can't remember," she answered recklessly. Her words floated away, and perished in a puddle of confusion. 

She left and didn't look back. 

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_Drip._

A glittering trickle of liquid snow tumbled from a gnarled branch of the bare cherry tree, scattering in murmuring ripples, as Sakura caught it swiftly in her small palm. She inhaled again the mild outdoor air, and a crest of relief spread undulating through her, at finally being able to breathe freely. 

The past five days she spent in her future husband's stately home had been brimming with activity - there were fittings to attend, servants to direct, and, most importantly, the wedding reception to organize and coordinate. 

Sometimes, though immured within the bustling movements around her, a familiar sense of loneliness would steal its way over her fragile nerves, and she'd gratefully close her eyes from the rest of the world, glad and waiting, until it left nothing but an illusory phantom. 

Day after day, she forgot a little more. 

Her hands were cold from soaking in the ever-melting snow, and she rubbed the numbing fingers against her leg, its wetness stretching across the faded, yellow fabric of her yukata, rendering it darker and more vibrant than before. 

Sakura smiled ruefully and thought about the home she left behind, and felt a lasting hint of anger at being moved so very far from her mother's gravesite, still fresh and brown on the grassy slope. 

_I hate you._

She remembered being uncontrollably furious at her father for forcing her to marry a stranger, and resentful and inconsolable at being made to grow up. 

_I wish I had never been born. I wish Mother had never died, and you had never sold me to a stranger._

The days now became a sort of game, filled with frantic scurrying and evasions to attempt to avoid having to speak to him. It was almost easier to suppress the fear and betrayal that way. 

It didn't seem to matter then that her situation wasn't exactly unique, that she was, more or less, behaving petulant and childish and spiteful. But now, the thought weighed heavily on her mind. She had no else but her father. No one else save her father and the man who would soon become her husband. This realization brought her no reprieve from the lyrical infestations of her mind. 

The distant sound of soft footsteps on gravel roused her from her dilute memories. Sakura looked up, and found herself gazing into a pair of startling eyes, one of which was the colour of a raven's wing, the other a frightening crimson. 

"Good afternoon," Kakashi greeted quietly, the grimness of his handsome face fading away as he smiled, making the vivid scar across his eye soften slightly. 

Sakura tried not to stare at how much the rays of full, dappled sunshine complimented his tousled, silvery hair. She bowed formally, ill at ease in his unfamiliar presence. "Hatake-sama," she murmured, unsure of what else to say. 

He inclined his head, eyes drooping a bit more than usual, spurred mostly by the peacefulness of her company. 

"Your garden, it's very lovely," she commented stiffly, lapsing into another stretch of soothing silence. 

"Hn." 

In the corner of her peripheral vision, Sakura noticed the trek of a tiny beetle across the smooth surface of a particularly large rock. (In fact, she personally thought that this rock was the grandest of the entire rock collection in the garden.) She speculated that the beetle was likely searching for its lost antenna, and her nose twitched in sympathy for the poor, dismembered insect. 

"I will be leaving tomorrow," he said abruptly, diverting Sakura's attention from the coppery beetle, which had just suffered a mild seizure. 

"Oh." She started in surprise, light green eyes widening perceptibly. "Why... where will you be going?" 

"Kyoto," he replied. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, amused, "I'll be back in time for the wedding." 

"I see," she whispered, feeling both relieved and disconcerted that he was going away. Then, a rare burst of impulsiveness seized her suddenly. "May I come with you?" 

Immediately, Sakura found herself flushing, embarrassed at the obvious naivete and rashness of her question. "Forget it," she amended quickly, "there are just so many things to do anyway." She gestured vaguely with her hand, and inwardly winced at having sounded so lame, even to her own ears. 

"I should...probably get back inside." She bowed again, and excused herself politely, rushing away down the even, stone pathway and up a short flight of steps to the main house. 

Kakashi grinned at her disappearing back, and shifted easily to catch the last bead of molten snow from the overhanging boughs of a tree. 

The scent of spring fluttered and soared in the gathering breeze, calling for the dormant plants to shake away the accumulated dust of winter. 

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Lifeless and pallid, she smiled tersely through the leaden paints and powder marring her face. Because it was expected and they were staring and she was secretly glad that the dried, clinging cracks shielded her expression. 

Circling and eager like vultures, the silent maids tediously dressed Sakura in a pristine, white kimono, and her throat swelled, raw and tight, as a hollow scream surged, wanting to force its way out. 

The gilded kanzashi were then threaded gently into her pale pink hair as one of the servants deftly pinned up her soft, glossy locks. 

Closing her eyes, Sakura exhaled and quietly dismissed the maids, and listened to them follow each other out of the room, their sandals falling faintly in periodic beats as they walked. She placed the tsuno kakushi experimentally on her head, and let her arms fall away to her side. 

She hummed softly to herself, resting her silk-clad elbows on the dressing table before her, where remained the final accessories of her elegant attire - the hakoseko and kaiken. 

The wedding ceremony was to take place in only a few hours. 

_Hatake Kakashi_. The name tasted foreign and tart on her tongue, and she shivered because she remembered having heard his deep voice, low and courteous, from across the thin partition of the screen doors, one day, as she was walking past in the hallway. And he had seemed surprisingly gracious and warm toward her that day in the rock garden, and Sakura felt more than a little foolish for having appeared so anxious and resentful. 

Perhaps her father was right, and she would be happy in this place. 

But it was already too late to apologize to him, to take back her demeaning behaviour, and regret tasted much more bitter and glassy than she remembered. The brocade obi coiled about her waist suddenly felt too constrained, and the room now seemed too dim and too devoted to an unearthly, shattering silence. 

From outside the grand window, Sakura watched the shifting sun penetrate its way through the dark, and shimmer across the stark morning sky, casting her tired face in a fleeting stream of warmth. 

Then, the shoji screen slid open, and the soiled ashes of long forgotten teardrops splattered in through the doorway. 

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**To be continued.**

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A.N.: Hope you enjoyed this first chapter, and please review! 


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